Ennder

There are two things I really want from this team. 1) Play over .500 ball to get that monkey off the team's back. 2) Play baseball in a competitive atmosphere down the stretch to give the young guys that experience. Right now both look like they will most likely happen to me so I'm going to be ok with the season. If we continue to tank maybe we'll end up under .500 and I'll be disappointed.

I dunno, the Braves are 10-11 in their last 21 games including being swept by the Reds at home and the Giants on the road. Not really sure they are turning it on. They are 29-29 since June 1st. Detroit just lost 12 of 16 including being swept by a very mediocre White Sox team at home. Thats just how baseball is, teams have ups and downs. Any time you start to talk about they are X-X since Y date you are walking on thin ice, all 2nd tier teams are going to look pretty bad if you take out their best hot streak.

We are 24-25 in our last 49 games even with the terrible stretch we have gone through recently. Just picking the worst case scenario stats is going to make things look bad every time. When the team is on a cold streak everything looks terrible, when they get hot again things will look better again. If you really want to break it down by streaks it goes... 14-9 in first 23 games 10-1 in next 11 games 10-20 in next 30 games 19-10 in next 29 games 7-15 in last 22 games. The teams play is all over the place.

Our leadoff hitters have a .337 OBP on the year and our #2 hitters have a .329 OBP so I think thats a lot of the blame. Braun also has the 2nd most RBI in the NL since the day he came up, so its hard to be upset with his RBI totals.

82 wins is a success, if we don't have a winning record this season then I think its a failure. I think people raised their expectations way too much because of the early season hot streak. I think 2008 sees us with a good shot at a 85-90 win team. Sheets, Gallardo, Parra, Suppan, Capuano, Bush is a decent rotation. The young offensive players should improve more and more and I don't think Menchkins is going to be that hard to replace personally.

I personally don't think Selig was cheap, he was trying to push his small market agenda so he went out of his way to tank this team. That is much worse than being cheap.

The division winner will be in the 83-87 wins range most likely.

That isn't really true though. There are pitchers who throw strikes regardless of the results and those that like to sit on the edge of the plate. Guys like Livan Hernandez, Doug Davis, Tom Glavine will sit on the corners no matter what, even if they don't have their best control and end up walking 5 or 6 guys. There is a very tangible difference between nibblers and aggressive pitchers. When you have good control nibbling works out more times than not, it has not worked for us this season. Our rotation sans Sheets/Gallardo are not stuff guys so they do need to nibble somewhat to win but they are overdoing it in my opinion. Nibbling + mediocre control = high pitch counts. That has been a real problem for this team this season even in the games where starters do pitch well. I don't think you can blame all of this on Estrada though because they really aren't all that much better under Miller and they all have a history of problems with BB's in the first place, we just sort of hoped last year was a sign of growth for capuano and vargas.

Hirsch shut us down yesterday for 6 innings after breaking his leg in the 2nd AB of the game. Now that is embarrassing.

I think that's a little generous to say weeks look good the first month. I personally don't think he's looked good at all this year. Besides the obvious hole at 2nd, we desperatly need to add a catcher who knows how to call a game and can hustle (yes i know catchers aren't going to be the fastest out there, but there's no excuse for basically crawling along the basepaths) I know it seems like years ago but Weeks had an .809 OPS on June 23rd with a .352 OBP, that is very good production from 2B, he was doing what everyone expected of him early in the season.

I dunno, people called Jenkins injury prone too, people call Halladay injury prone. I guess if you are using the term very loosely anyone who gets hurt twice within a couple years is injury prone. Thats simply not how I use the word. Injury prone is someone who has a chronic condition that comes up time and time again. Weeks wrist acts up next year and he gets the label from me. Harden, Wood, Prior... constantly hurt and in the same exact areas, that to me is injury prone. Maybe a guy like J.D. Drew when it gets to be 5 or 6 straight years with an injury too I guess. Sheets isn't quite there, he's been sick a couple times and had two injuries in 7 years, to me thats not prone. But I guess that is why i wasn't going to get into it.

Oh I agree. Braun/Gallardo has been as good or even better than expected, Fielder has turned into the player we all hoped he would, Turnbow mostly turned things around, Hart looks like he has solidified into a solid every day OF, Shouse appears to have turned into a LRP and not just a LOOGY. Almost the entire rest of the team has been a let down on the season at this point. Hardy and Weeks looked good the first month and a half and have been just horrible since, the entire rotation has underperformed expectations, the bullpen has been a disaster. I'm as frustrated as anyone else, but there are plenty of reasons for hope as well. If some of these guys do turn the corner and start performing like we expected I still think we can go on a tear and take what is an extremely weak division.

Having watched baseball for 20 years now I'd draw absolutely no conclusions about 3 days of play. The team could easily rip off a 20-10 stretch over the next 30 days, they could easily go 10-20 too. Baseball is just really streaky like that.

The Cubs were 5-5 in their last 10 games when Soriano went down, they were not white hot. The injury to Sheets is probably a good thing for 2008 since its not really a long term pitching related problem. I was more worried that his arm would blow up from over use after missing back to back half seasons. Injury prone is a pretty silly tag in general so I won't go into that one again.

Unfortunately thats a picture of two of the worst hitters in baseball since June 1st.

Yep exactly, if Torre had been our manager for the past 5 years we'd have gone to the playoffs at least 4 times. W/L is probably the worst way you could judge them.

Yes Coincidence. The Cubs look terrible right now and Barrett is not on the team. The Cubs had a hot month followed by a month where everything bounced their way, it had basically nothing to do with the 3 C's that split time over that time frame. I find it hard to blame Estrada for the pitchers having problems throwing strikes. The problem is other than Gallardo and Sheets the entire pitching staff likes to nibble instead of throwing strikes, that seems true with both C's behind the plate.

Before sending Weeks down Hardy was getting a good bit of rest so I can't really agree with this.

Since the all star break... Braun - 1.064 Fielder - .924 Jenkins - .859 Hart - .800 Mench - .722 Counsell - .686 Grafannino - .626 Estrada - .604 Hardy - .542 Weeks - .530 Hall - .528 Miller - .407 There are a lot of holes in that lineup right now, if Braun hadn't come up this offense would be anemic.

I dunno, this year he has an .883 OPS on the first pitch. For whatever reason thats just the pitch he does best on. He is just dreadful when behind in the count.

To be fair Estrada has had much more success on his career when swinging at the 1st pitch. .902 career OPS on the first pitch. .733 OPS total. I still like the deal. Davis is basically Vargas but with 1/2 more IP per game, no thanks. Don't be fooled by the 3.88 ERA, he has pitched horribly this year and had some lucky results, not unlike Vargas earlier this year.

I get the feeling this is going to be a long game with our bullpen already stretched to its limits and Vargas out there. I liked him a lot more before he regressed to the mean.

Since we only seem to score in the 1st inning I'm guessing Fogg shuts us out. Prove me wrong boys!

Villaneuva still has more good games than bad ones so I dont' really see a reason to DL him. Wise is a more interesting case but thats really for Yost and Maddux to judge. There is no way a fan knows what is going on with a mental issue like he is having.

Has nothing to do with yesterday. It has everything to do with the fact this team hasn't shown it can win on the road all year. I don't expect that trend to just stop. I mean, I hope it does. But I don't seriously think it will. Once this team learns how to win on the road, look out. I guess I don't see how they can "learn how to win" on the road. I won't deny that it's been the trend, but really you play the same game whether you're on the road or at home, except for some managerial differences in the latter innings depending on if you're leading/behind/tied. The bases are 90 feet away and the mound is about 60 feet, true. But that's only part of the game. For whatever reason these guys, mainly young guys, haven't figured out how prepare for a game outside of their comfort zone: home. They likely don't have good routines and haven't adapted to the challenges travel and stresses that new environments put on you. Whatever it is, the proof is in the pudding. These guys don't play the same at home and on the road. Their approach to the game is different and their preparation is likely different. This is something a young team will have to overcome and comes with experience. Obviously they've traveled with Minor League teams, etc, but it's different at this level because the margin of error is so small. On lower levels, these guys could bring a lesser performance and still get away with it. At this level, losing anything because of poor preparation will result in almost certain road failure. It's this way in any sport I've seen usually. Young teams very often have difficulty on the road due to the mental aspect being vastly different. The offense has basically the same home/road splits as all other teams do. Its the pitching that loses it on the road and that isn't the young guys, thats the vets and especially Cordero.